Ethereum Dapp Bancor Is Expanding to EOS for Fast, Free Transactions

Bancor, one of the most popular and valuable decentralized applications on ethereum, is expanding to the EOS blockchain.

Explaining the decision to launch on EOS, Bancor's announcement cited the blockchain network's transaction speeds, which are faster than ethereum's, as well as its lack of fees - in contrast to the often-costly "Gas" fees ethereum users must pay to call smart contracts.

As a corollary to the lack of fees, Bancor said that EOS eliminates "Front-running risk," since transactions aren't prioritized in exchange for paying higher fees.

It is worth noting that while EOS transactions are fee-free for users, deploying dapps on the blockchain can be costly for developers, unless they choose to pass the costs on to users.

One feature of EOS that Bancor's announcement did not cite, but which may be relevant to Bancor's offering, is the ability for a supermajority of the network's block producers - who maintain the EOS blockchain in a way analogous to ethereum's miners - to effectively reverse transactions.

Nate Hindman, Bancor's communications director, denied that this feature of EOS influenced Bancor's decision to expand to that network, instead reiterating the benefits mentioned in the company's announcement: faster transactions, zero fees and resistance to front-running.

The freezing and reversal of EOS transactions has proved controversial, as many in the cryptocurrency community see the inability to do these things as a core appeal of blockchains.

Many commentators reacted negatively to EOS block producers' decision to freeze transactions from a number of compromised accounts soon after the network's launch.

Bancor, in a similar vein, is notable for its decision to write the ability to freeze and reverse certain transactions into its ethereum smart contract, as cryptocurrency developer Udi Wertheimer detailed in a blog post last year.

Bancor's protocol is already being used on the EOS network to govern the market for RAM, a resource necessary for the creation of EOS accounts.